Christmas is coming
Past Times - with John Hobbs
A visit to Cardiff - report by Roly High
The 'Rheidol Road' Special - report by Denis Bates
Manchester Metrolink developments - pictures by Greg
Mape
A Winter outing - report by Martin Evans
The Pannier Rambler - report by Richard Putley
Llandudno station before improvement - pictures by
Roly High.
Video Corner
26 November 2012

End of the Pendolino Drag?
Flooding
Looking back at the Dyserth branch - with John Hobbs
To Birmingham for the Model Railway show - with Roly
High.
For Sale: Penmaenmawr station house
Coal to Penyffordd
Marches line resignalling
Bangor Repair Shed - last days
North Wales electrification?
MOSI and the Ordsall Chord - report by Charlie Hulme

Weekend events
Another look at the at the Arriva Premier Express
The new 'Irish Mancunian'?
'Last of the Summer WAG', or 'The Long Way Round' - by
Class 97/3 doings - report by Mark Watson
Corwen Project Update - by George Jones
Looking back
Corwen exhibition - report by George Jones
To Dundee, come Hell or High Water - report by Roly
High
New book on Ruabon to Barmouth - reviewed by George
JonesForthcoming events
This list may be out of date if you are reading an archived
page. For
the current list visit our Calendar.

December
2012

Thursday 13 December Llandudno
and
Conwy Valley Railway Society Christmas Social helped
along by
members Alex Cowan confirming to us that “Trainspotting was
an
education” and Larry Davies taking us back to “1962 – a year
of change”

Friday 4 January Clwyd
Railway
Circle Pete Gray “Welsh Highland Railway”
Our speaker
for the night is the Safety & Development Manager of the
WHR;
previous to this, he was the Construction Manager from
2006-2010. Pete
will be talking about his experiences during this time and
the
organization that is needed to keep the show on the road.

Friday 1 March Clwyd
Railway
Circle The Committee & Larry Davies.
AGM followed
by the talk “60 years ago – Diamond days” After the
formality is over,
we look forward to the talk by one of our favourite
speakers.

Friday 5 April Clwyd
Railway
Circle Michael Murphy 'Liverpool Overhead
Railway' To
finish off the season, a highly recommended speaker known
for his
light-hearted style of presentation. The talk will be
followed by film
footage of the railway in its heyday.

Thursday 16 May LCGB North
West AGM
and Members/Visitors Slides & Digital Photos.

The rare sight of trains on both 'up main' and 'down main'
lines at
Bangor: on 9 December 57 601 is on the rear of the Holyhead
- Carnforth
empty stock from the previous day's Edinburgh excursion, as
221 102John Cabot heads west
as a Virgin
Trains timetabled empty-stock train. Picture by Geraint Jones.Twittering:
Updates to this site will now be announced on the Twitter
account @NWrail1
along with any other relevant interjections. Followers
welcome. -Charlie

Gobowen station Christmas Cafe

Everyone is welcome at Gobowen
station on Thursday 13 December
where the Chester - Shrewsbury Rail Partnership are running
a
'Christmas Café' from 9am to 3pm with home-made
soups, snacks
and festive fare on sale. All proceeds go to the Oswestry
Branch of
Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research.

Pendolino no more

Enthusasts who hoped to ride the final Pendolino working to
Holyhead on
8 December were disappointed, as Virgin Trains decided that,
following problems the previous Saturday, a pair of
Voyagers
would run on 8 December, as was planned to start on 15
December.

Adam
Barnard witnessed 1 December's troubles:
'390 049 refused
to move after 57 315 coupled to it so 221 116 was
dispatched to
Holyhead in its place. This then worked back as the 14:38
Holyhead -
London as far as Crewe, where it ran into platform 12 and
met
face-to-face with 390 049 which then continued on to
Euston, while 221
116 waited for the arrival of the 15:10 London - Chester
worked by 221
104, which arrived at 17:05 instead of the advertised
1647. 221 116 and
221 104 were then coupled to work together to Chester, but
this took 3
attempts, as 221 116 didn't really want to play ball. The
16:49 to
Chester then left three minutes in front of the Arriva
17:23 to
Chester.'

And so, on 8 December the duty was entrusted to 221 118 (formerly Mungo
Park)
and 221 106Willem Barents,
pictured above by Roly
High arriving at Rhyl with the Westbound train.

The three Class 57/3 locos which remained allocated to
Virgin and
retained their livery (307, 308, 311) have transferred to
the DRS
fleet, and have ceased to be the maintenance responsibilty
of Alstom's
Manchester Longsight depot. All are expected to
receive DRS
livery. 57 307 has already been sent to Eastleigh Works
(minus its pink
Lady Penelope nameplates which should do well at a charity
auction).
The future of the four Arriva-liveried locos 57 313 - 316
seems to be
uncertain at present.

In future the Class 57/3 locomotives for 'rescue' duty will
be hired by
Virgin from DRS, and will normally be located at Euston,
Rugby, Crewe,
Preston and Carlisle stations (the latter being based at
Polmadie until
April 2013). The rescue locos are to be staffed by DRS
drivers; a
programme of training for DRS drivers on Dellner couplers
and relevant
route learning has been put together and will take place
over the
coming months.

It has been announced that Virgin Trains are continuing to
operate the
West Coast Main Line routes, including London - Holyhead,
for a couple
of years or so, while the Department for Transport gets its
act
together. However, It is reported that the set of Mk3
Coaches liveried
in Pendolino style, the so-called 'Pretendolino' is not to
be used in
service in the current timetable. We'll see.

Incidentally, the Rail Head Treatment Train has now stopped
running
another chance to photograph a locomotive-worked train is
lost. Network
Rail's tree controllers have the uncanny ability to make the
last leaf
fall just before the date of the international timetable
change...

Feedback

A couple of interesting points to mention, thanks to
correspondents
following earlier updates. Firstly, regarding Sandy Lane crossing (19 November issue), we are told
that since
about a year ago a Temporary Speed Restriction from 90 to 75
mph has
been in force for trains at at this crossing, due to the
known sighting
problems.

The main line connection in Salford to the Museum of Science
and
Industry Liverpool Road
station,
subject
to controversy as it will be blocked by the construction of
the
Ordsall Chord, has in fact already been disconnected by
Network Rail
earlier this year. This was not mentioned at the recent
consultation
event, but it would appear to prevent any possible 'farewell
specials'
into the site, so Prince Charles and his friends and family
on the 2010
Royal Train
will have been the last passengers to travel there by rail.

Princess Elizabeth visits Chester

Pacific 6201Princess Elizabeth
passes Brassey
Green, west of Beeston, with the Slough - Chester
'Cathedrals Express'
on Tuesday 4 December. This was the locomotive's final
working before
major overhaul, due to commence at Tyseley next month.
Picture above by Ian
Pilkington.

Arrival at Chester. Picture by Bob
Greenhalgh.

After turning on the triangle at Chester, Princess Elizabeth
eases past 67 016
stabled with the empty stock (Ian Pilkington).

After taking water, and a protracted wait for a path, the
locomotive
and its support coach 99040 leave Chester for a final run to
Tyseley,
only 10 minutes before 67
016
was due to depart with the train back to Slough (Ian Pilkington).

RCTS meeting 17 December

The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society meets again at
the 'Town
Crier' opposite Chester railway station on Monday 17t
December at 7.30
p.m. The evening is one where some of the members show
either
some of their slides or digital pictures covering a wide
range of
railway subjects at home and abroad either in the past or
much more
recently. Those who bring along railway artefacts can
speak about
them.

Visitors are more than welcome to attend this meeting but
hopefully
they would each contribute a £2 voluntary
donation. Such
donations enable the Society to continue its regularity of
such
meetings. Further inquiries about this meeting can be made
by
telephoning 0151-608 4296.

Edinburgh Statesman

Statesman Rail ran
an excursion
from Holyhead and coast line stations to Edinburgh on
Saturday 8
December. Such an operation involves bringing an empty train
from West
Coast Railway Company's depot at Carnforth to Holyhead the
day before
and returning it the day after. Roly
High set out to photograph the outbound empties at
Rhyl on the
wintry afternoon on 7 December, choosing the slope leading
to the road
bridge on the reasonable assumption that the train would be
routed
along the 'down main' line through the station rather than
the platform
loop. However, the train did run through the platform
bringing it too
close for the planned picture. See the left column, and the
above Lowry-esque
view showing 47 245 on the rear of the train receding into
the gloom.
These imposing ramped bridges at Prestatyn and Rhyl date
from the
widening of the railway route from two to four tracks late
in the
Victorian period.

The excursion itself on 8 December ran along the North Wales
line in
darkness both morning and evening, but the Sunday empty
stock train
5Z58 Holyhead - Carnforth ran in daylight; indeed it ran
somewhat
earlier than some railfans had expected, but Geraint
Jones was
in position at Bangor to record its passing. 47 245 is leading with
57 601Sheila trailing.The
first-class
section comprised West Coast's 'Pullman' coaches. All are
ex-British
Rail Mk 2 vehicles, but the paint schemes around the windows
disclose
that four of them, with larger windows, were built as
Pullman coaches
for use on the Pullman from Manchester and Liverpool to
London after
electrification of that route in the 1960s. The others were
built later
as normal First Class open stock, with the shallower windows
characteristic of the later Mk2 builds.

57 601 on the rear at Llandudno Junction (Peter Lloyd). This loco,
which was
the prototype for the passenger version of the Class 57, has
been
repainted in West Coast's standard livery minus the
additional black
band which acted as an identification feature. However the
plain front
and different marker lights distinguish it from the
company's 47s.

Bala Santa

Ex-Dinorwic Quarry Hunslet-built loco Holy
War at the head of the Bala Lake
Railway Santa
Train on Sunday 9 December. Apart from some rain on the
Sunday morning
the weather was good over the weekend which saw over 500
people travel
on the trains (Bob Greenhalgh).

Llandudno lifting - report by Peter Lloyd

The track was lifted from the old platforms 4 and 5 at
Llandudno
station on 6 December. The pictures show the 'before' and
'after' scene
at Platform 4. These tracks had been left in place as
sidings when the
station track layout was simplified in the 1970s; after that
trains
could not arrive or depart from them without reversals. The
connections
to the them were removed more recently.

Loco-hauled for Christmas

We understand that the Class 67-hauled 'Premier Express'
train will
operate the following services on Saturdays 22 and 29
December 2012:

The reason for this is stated as high bookings on ferries on
these
dates, but for railfans it looks like a good opportunity to
ride on
and/or photograph this train in daylight. Let's hope it
happens.

Rugby special

The Premier Service set was used on 1 December for a
Holyhead - Cardiff
rugby special (Train 1V41). Above, 82306 leading 67 003 into Crewe
yesterday with the
1V41 ruggex to Cardiff, seen from the Crewe Heritage Centre.

This train had an interesting adventure on 27 November when
flooding
was affecting services. During its layover in Cardiff it was
used to
work a Cardiff - Carmarthen and return service.

High-speed train?

The live
departure
board can come up with some oddities at times,
sometimes
explained by two trains having the same code number within
the system,
or some other subtle 'feature' (to use IT industry speak).
However the
workings that created the example above, spotted by David Harrison on Sunday
9 December,
are hard to fathom.. David writes: 'Pity this train was
delayed ... as
a Sunday service taking 8 mins from Stockport to Chester and
only
another 7 mins to get to Cardiff would be very popular!

Could it be somehow connected with the planned change-over
of
signalling systems on the Crewe - Shrewsbury line which
would have seen
Manchester - Cardiff trains diverted via Chester but never
actually
happened?

Tunnel cannabis farners charged

Four
men
have
been
jailed for what police described as a sophisticated
commercial-scale production of cannabis in disused railway
tunnels,
while officially the site at Bangor was being used to grow
mushrooms.
Mold Crown Court heard the operation was capable of
producing at least
£1.5m worth of cannabis a year. The men were caught as
part of a
police operation focusing on the production of high grade
cannabis in
the disused Faenol railway tunnels at Menai Business Park.
Police were
tipped off and found hidden industrial-sized cannabis
laboratories; A
trap door is reported to have led to five growing rooms, one
of which
had cannabis with an estimated street value of
£225,000.

These tunnels, referred to in older documents by the English
transliteration 'Vaynol', were on the Menai Bridge -
Caernarfon line,
beyond the quiet station of Treborth, and lay on a 1 in 79
climb for
Bangor-bound trains. The explanation for the two tunnels is
that the
line was built as single track by the Bangor & Carnarvon
Railway,
opened in 1851. The company was later taken over by the
Chester &
Holyhead company, who improved it to double track, boring a
second
tunnel at Vaynol. The line to Caernarfon was abandoned in
1972, having
had is life extended to take contrainer freight traffic for
Holyhead
following the 1970 Britannia Bridge fire which severed the
Bangor -
Holyhead line.

Holiday Snap

Ice cold with alex: your editor and Siemens 'ER20' diesel 223 068 with the 13:58
Lindau -
Munich on 3 December. These trains have retained their
Arriva livery
although no longer operated by Arriva. The 'Allgäu Express' runs
every two
hours from Lindau for the scenic journey of two hours 43
minutes to the
Bavarian capital. Three coaches form the normal consist from
Lindau as
far as Immenstadt where a portion brought down the branch
from the
winter resort of Oberstdorf by another loco, usually
an
ex-Austrian Railways 2143, is added. A visit is recommended.